Delta Air Lines and Korean Air have applied to the U.S. Transportation Dept. for immunity from antitrust laws for their alliance, which resumes code-sharing service May 1 after more than two years' hiatus due to concerns about safety at KAL. The airline would be integrated into the Sky Team partnership that won immunity late last year--Delta, Air France, Alitalia and Czech. KAL would do transpacific flying for Delta and gain access to Delta's U.S. and Latin American service beyond U.S. gateways. Delta would put passengers on KAL flights beyond Inchon throughout Asia.
Airlines around the world, coming back from the Sept. 11 downturn, are not letting the unsettled aviation market interfere with their varied attempts to strengthen themselves or, at the least, do what they need to do.
This trio of inertial systems for unmanned aircraft guidance and remotely piloted vehicles are solid-state attitude and heading reference units that combine the functionality of an IMU with vertical and directional gyro capabilities, according to the company. The VG400CB and AHRS400CB, the lower cost units, were flight tested on a number of UAVs prior to introduction. The two units combine silicon bulk micro-machined accelerometers and angular rate sensors, with proprietary compensation and angle calculation algorithms executed on a dual-DSP processor.
Bill Chana has been elected president of the Silver Wings Fraternity. He is a past president of the San Diego chapter and of the San Diego Aerospace Museum.
The FAA has issued an emergency airworthiness directive placing operating limits on Bombardier's new 70-seat regional jet, the CRJ700. The alert was mandated both in Canada and the U.S. after reports of uncommanded fuel transfers between the twin jet's wing tanks and the center fuel tank, an action that can cause the center tank to overflow, starving an engine or possibly causing a fire during ground operations. As an interim safety measure, the FAA will require U.S. operators to carry an additional 3,000 lb. of fuel for each flight and to stay within 60 min.
Ansett's final bow from Australia's airline stage leaves two players--Qantas and Virgin Blue--planning strategic roles in the convoluted plot that is the country's airline industry. Last week, Sir Richard Branson agreed to sell a A$260-million (US$135-million) one-half share of Virgin Blue, his low-cost Australian carrier, to Patrick Corp., the logistics firm which last year lost a bid to Tesna for Ansett. The move would allow Virgin Blue the freedom to operate international routes and better leverage in acquiring Ansett assets.
NASA has sent a notice of intent to terminate its first International Space Station commercialization deal after Dreamtime, the Silicon Valley startup that promised to raise $100 million for ISS multimedia activities, failed to deliver. Launched in May 2000, Dreamtime hasn't met several milestones in the original contract, including providing a Web-searchable database with digitized material from the NASA archives and producing a television documentary. NASA gave Dreamtime 90 days to respond before it starts looking elsewhere for the services.
Mounting uncertainties aggravated by the ongoing airline crisis, weak military procurement spending and low research funding are battering the French aerospace industry's financial outlook. ``We have serious concerns about the future, our ability to maintain competitiveness and long-term independence,'' Philippe Camus warned. He is president of the Gifas French aerospace industries association and co-CEO of EADS.
Fourteen of the two dozen Bombardier CRJ200 50-seat regional jets left idle when Midway Airlines downsized last fall have now been spoken for, with repainting and reoutfitting now underway at the manufacturer's heavy maintenance facility and paint shop in Clarksburg, W. Va. According to Bombardier officials, Mesa Airlines has purchased two CRJs for its new Denver-based Frontier JetExpress service that starts Apr.
In an effort to restore faith in air travel, a group of travel agent organizations and airlines last week launched the $500,000 ``Flight Plan for America.'' The project's goal is to educate the public about today's travel environment--with emphasis on what's being done to ensure their safety. The plan is a product of representatives of ARC (Airlines Reporting Corp.), the American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA) and the Assn. of Retail Travel Agents (ARTA), and Southwest and Delta airlines. Based on a recent Flight Plan survey of 500 U.S.
Six months after the worst disaster in commercial aviation history sent air travel into its deepest-ever operational and financial nosedive, the world's airlines are coming to believe they may emerge from the downturn as fast as they hoped at first, maybe faster.
Rockwell Collins Flight Dynamics has signed a contract--worth up to $100 million--with Boeing to develop dual head-up display systems for the U.S. Air Force C-130 avionics modernization program. Boeing is the prime contractor for upgrading the avionics on more than 500 Lockheed Martin C-130s.
While other Chinese carriers are looking for foreign investment, China's Hainan Airways said it will invest $4.9 million for a 49% stake in Air Cambodia. The Cambodian government, eager for a Phnom Penh carrier to replace Royal Air Cambodge, will hold a 41% stake with credit given for property rights and market access. Cambodian private investors will put up $1 million for a 10% stake. Royal Air Cambodge went bankrupt last October due to high debt and the sudden loss of revenue from visiting Americans following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
SkyEurope Airlines, which claims to be the first low-cost airline in Eastern Europe, launched operations last month with one Embraer EMB-120 Brasilia. The carrier operates 34 weekly flights between the capital and home base of Bratislava and Kosice in Slovakia. A similarly named Sky-Europe, a joint Slovak-Belgian company, holds the majority 50.25% stake and Spanish carrier SwiftAir the rest. SkyEurope plans to add another EMB-120 to the fleet and eventually fly Boeing 737s to link Bratislava with major European hubs.
About 2,700 unionized Lockheed Martin Corp. employees remained on strike last Thursday after walking off the job in Marietta, Ga., earlier in the week. The workers, who belong to the International Assn. of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, rejected a contract proposal because they claimed it did not provide adequate job security. F-22 production could be affected, depending on the duration of the strike.
Dan Janka has become president of Cincinnati Machine's U.S.-based machinery business and Bill Horwarth vice president/general manager for Cincinnati Plus.
The ProAir heat exchangers with a heat pipe core prevent excessive heat rise inside cabinets/enclosures. For example, in a small enclosure without such a device and a heat load of 300 watts, the heat rise would be about 50F above ambient. A closed-loop design ensures that unclean, ambient air circulates separately from the clean enclosure air, helping to extend the life of the electronics. There are three models in 115- or 230-volt and 50/60-Hz. configurations. They will limit heat rise within 15-24F above ambient. APW Thermal Management, 11611 Business Park Blvd.
NASA's Gravity Probe B project has finally mated its instrument to its spacecraft and shipped the assembly off for environmental testing. The experiment, designed to measure two predictions of the Theory of General Relativity, has been plagued by delays and rising costs stemming from the challenge of building gyroscopes, a star tracker and related equipment sensitive enough to register the shift in space-time caused by rotation of the Earth.
Foam technology originally designed for the manufacture of surfboards is finding application as the structural core material in the wings of the X-45A unmanned combat aerial vehicle. The company that developed the material, Foam Matrix, recently received Boeing's 2002 Supplier Innovation Award, becoming the first Phantom Works supplier to receive such recognition.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has picked a Boeing-led team to demonstrate autonomous in-orbit refueling and repair of one satellite by another. Boeing will have overall integration responsibility on the team that includes Ball Aerospace and Technologies, TRW, MD Robotics, and Charles Stark Draper Laboratory. Darpa will spend about $100 million on Orbital Express, while the contractors will contribute $13 million. BAE Systems and Spectrum Astro led the two losing teams.
SES Americom has canceled two orders with Alcatel Space and placed a new one as it readjusts its order book to mesh with coverage provided by SES Astra of Luxembourg, with which Americom merged last year. The new unit will be a 4.9-metric-ton, 60-transponder C-band spacecraft, designated AMC-23, to handle Asia-Pacific and transpacific TV and multimedia coverage. The two canceled satellites are AMC-12 and 13 (formerly GE 3i/4i), which were to serve transatlantic and transpacific links.
Herley Industries Inc. has received contracts totaling $7.5 million to supply microwave products for the National Missile Defense and E-2C Hawkeye airborne early warning programs.
Former U.S. Rep. Denny A. Smith of Oregon, a retired U.S. Air Force pilot, has been elected president of the board of trustees of the Evergreen Aviation Museum, McMinnville, Ore.
Night-flying B-1s have dropped 39% of the weapons that have fallen on Afghanistan, but aircrews and advocates of heavy bombers are complaining the swing-wing bomber is not getting the credit it deserves. The B-52s, which dropped another 29% of the total, at least get on television because they fly during the day. Navy fighters weighed in with 24% of the bomb tonnage, while USAF fighters dropped the final 7%, according to unpublished Pentagon figures. The B-1s dropped twice as many Joint Direct Attack Munitions as all the rest of the military aircraft combined.
